


as a result of acquiring. as a result of losing.

by guttersvoice



Category: Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, M/M, au where komaedas setup fails, unreality warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-26
Updated: 2020-09-26
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:41:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26660848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/guttersvoice/pseuds/guttersvoice
Summary: He’s been trying, since the moment he saw the unbroken bottle on the floor beside him, to trust in his luck. Doing everything he can to believe that this will lead to the most hopeful outcome - but it’s hard.
Relationships: Hinata Hajime/Komaeda Nagito
Comments: 7
Kudos: 108





	as a result of acquiring. as a result of losing.

**Author's Note:**

> started this in like, 2018 after seeing some art of the basic idea and only just found it unfinished in my docs.
> 
> so i finished it. gets messy and rushed at the end but i think thats ok. gets a little silly i think after i start taking it in a direction that was easier to conclude, but thats fine
> 
> i dont often write things with intent to hurt but hopefully this has at least a little of that.

"I told you already."

Komaeda's voice is dull and tired. Quiet, too, but that's probably because his throat is so raw still. He won't look at Hajime, only at the way his own fingers push into his bandaged thighs. Hajime wants to tug his hand away, stop him from reopening barely-closed injuries, but the last time he'd tried to touch the other boy, Komaeda had looked at him with such fear and disgust in his eyes - he can't bear the thought of seeing that again. Not that he can blame him for not being able to trust anyone, after what happened. He's the same, after all; the only time he left the cabin since, he did everything he could to avoid the others, all too aware that it could have been any of them.

Which is why he keeps asking, even though he keeps getting the same answer.

"As far as I know, there was no one in the warehouse besides myself," Komaeda insists, again, and Hajime wants to grab him by the shoulders and shake him until he remembers something - anything - even though he knows it must be the truth, after the amount they've been back and forth on this.

"I just need -" he falters, struggling to find the words to explain himself properly. “I want to keep you safe -”

Komaeda's laugh is breathy, wheezing a little on its way out.

“How can I possibly trust that?” he asks, and he’s right to ask it. 

For all Komaeda knows, it was Hajime who did this to him.

They lapse into silence again. It’s been like this all day: the same argument, then silence, and Hajime checks through the blinds and makes sure the door is locked. He’s propped a chair under the handle too, just in case. Thanks, Mioda. God, Mioda - Komaeda had been so close to joining her in the list of victims. To becoming yet another portrait decorated with black ribbons. 

He makes sure the door is secure, stealing glances at the injured boy sitting on his bed.

This time, unlike the rest, Komaeda is the one to break their mutual quiet.

“Why?” he asks. His fingers, long and bony and probably as cold as his poor circulation usually leaves them, fret at the bandages wrapped carefully around his right hand. They’re staining through; Hajime will have to replace them soon. He can only hope that he’ll be able to do it without so much revulsion in Komaeda’s expression. The first time, he’d still been most of the way passed out, limbs slack and face tight with pain; now, it might not be so easy. “Why did you go to such effort to save my life, Hinata-kun? I’ve been trying, but I don’t understand it at all.”

This is a chance. An opening; a possibility that he might be able to connect with the other boy, to work on moving forward.

“I --” he starts, and bites his tongue. He has to be careful here. Komaeda is intelligent - and thoughtful - and paranoid. No matter the truth, it's inevitable that he'll read into anything Hajime tries to say. So he needs to choose his words with forethought and meaning. 

Best to keep it simple, then, to start.

“Why wouldn’t I?” he asks. He knows the sort of response this should prompt from Komaeda - but if he raises his usual points, they should be easy enough to shoot down one by one.

“I’ve been threatening to kill all of you, for a start.”

More blunt that he’d been anticipating - he’d expected at least some self-deprecation first, but after learning that he wasn’t one of the talented people Komaeda held in such high regard, it makes sense that he wouldn’t bother trying to elevate Hajime’s position compared to himself anymore. Or maybe he's too exhausted after the attempt on his life - though from things he's said before, it isn't like that was the first time he's come so close to death.

No matter the reason, that bluntness comes as a small relief. It’s harder to argue rationally with someone who constantly puts himself down even when he’s making reasonable points.

“I don’t want anyone else to die,” he responds simply. “Even if there is a traitor; even if you’ve been scaring us all.”

Saying that out loud makes something else clear to him. Komaeda looks like he’s going to say something else - the twist of his mouth is disparaging, so Hajime cuts him off.

“You’ve been scared, too, right?” Of course he has. His actions these past few days have been complicated and frightening and thought-through, but there’s been something else about them that’s had Hajime worried, and he hasn’t been able to properly put his finger on it until now. Even as he speaks the pieces fall into place in his mind. “You’ve been acting like - like if that plan of yours with the bombs didn’t work - which it didn’t - like there was no--”

That dark glint makes its way back into Komaeda’s eyes as he cuts himself off.

“Hinata-kun, you’ve got that wrong” Komaeda admonishes softly, leaning forward across the bed as best he can to wave a finger in front of Hajime's nose. He’s smiling, but it’s not the gentle, bright smile he’s shown Hajime a few times. This is the smile from the courtroom, and it makes all the hair on the back of his neck stand up to see. “You can’t really believe I could truly lose hope, can you?”

Hajime shakes his head slowly. But he’s sure he’s onto something here. Something he’s missing about all of this.

“No,” he agrees, carefully piecing together thoughts. “But I know that you want everyone to hope, rather than despair, ultimately, right?”

Komaeda’s lips press together so hard they turn white, but the way he looks at Hajime is thoughtful, now, rather than disgusted, rather than frightening.

“Maybe you’re the traitor,” he suggests.

“I’m not,” Hajime responds automatically.

Komaeda runs his hands through his hair, lets himself fall backwards and lie down, arms splayed either side of him.

Just like when they’d found him, only not tied down. Hajime forces the thought away, forces the nausea down. He can’t imagine any of his friends doing something like that. It just seems so impossible - and yet here Komaeda is, steadily bleeding through his bandages.

“Who knows?” He says to the ceiling. “You didn’t remember being a part of the Reserve Course, after all,” he points out, tone sharpening over those two words that are still a fresh wound for Hajime. “Maybe you’ve forgotten that you’re a traitor, too.”

“You wouldn’t have threatened to blow up the island if you thought that was a real possibility,” Hajime points out, and realises right away that he’s wrong - the bombs had been fake, hadn’t been nearly powerful enough for that, in the end, had they? He’d just wanted the traitor to reveal themself.

There’s a creeping, uncomfortable awareness inching its way up Hajime’s spine, but he doesn’t want to think about it as a possibility.

“Mmh,” Komaeda agrees, though, instead of arguing the obvious point. “Still, I was hoping…”

He turns his head as he trails off.

No: his head falls sideways, gently, as he falls asleep. Finally. For the first time since he’d woken up after Hajime carried him back here.

Hajime’s not sure if he’s managed to reach a point where he feels comfortable and safe enough to let himself rest, or if he just got too tired to stay awake, but it’s a relief to see anyway.

He should probably get some rest himself.

Instead, he sits and watches the slow rise and fall of Komaeda’s chest, and reminds himself that even if he doesn’t know who did this, they didn’t succeed. Komaeda is still alive, and he’s going to keep him safe no matter what.

\---

It’s lucky that all the cabins are essentially the same; there’s a few seconds of thinking he’s in his own bed before the events of the last few days catch up with him.

The pain catches up, too, but that’s fine. Really, someone like him deserves far worse. It’s what he wanted, isn’t it?

Well. Not quite.

He’s been trying, since the moment he saw the unbroken bottle on the floor beside him, to trust in his luck. Doing everything he can to believe that this will lead to the most hopeful outcome - but it’s hard.

He’d known that he might not completely succeed - that the remaining students could somehow root out and execute the traitor, instead of the only trustworthy person remaining getting to graduate alone, to escape and keep those who were left from being let out into the world. He just hadn’t anticipated his plan failing so completely. Hadn’t anticipated Hinata-kun’s kindness.

Maybe he really is the traitor. God, he wants Hinata-kun to be the traitor. Wants to defect and join him and never let despair spread further - as a concept, but also Despair, as.. what, an organisation? an ideology? the file had only given him barely enough to understand what was going on, what the people around him really were.

Enough to know that they all needed to die, except one.

His head pounds as he sits up - his throat is dry, too, so it’s probably just dehydration. His legs shake at the thought of walking, still, though, so he should probably just ask Hinata-kun --

Who is asleep, sat on the floor beside his bed, head resting on the sheets next to where Nagito’s hand just was.

He looks peaceful.

Nagito doesn’t want to wake him. 

He’s been cruel to him, lately. Not that he was wrong to say the things he has said - if Hinata-kun didn’t agree with them, he wouldn’t have attended Hope’s Peak at all, talent or no. Besides, it’s nothing he wouldn’t say to himself. He’s sure he made that clear enough, before the trial for Nidai. Hinata-kun had been upset, but he’d been as honest as he could, given the circumstances. It seems impossible for his feelings not to have gotten across, even.

His feelings. Ah, there’s the real problem. He really does want Hinata-kun to be the traitor, and that bias will hurt him, if he’s not. 

Because if Hinata-kun isn’t the traitor, then that means he’s --

Then that means this whole time, he’s been --

And he wants Nagito to just trust him and tell him the truth.

It’s impossible. There’s no way. He can’t just trust any of them until he’s sure, and now he can’t be sure.

Hinata-kun stirs a little beside him, and he does his best to still his shaking limbs, stops tugging quite so frantically at his hair.

Someone like him shouldn’t dare to want something like this. It’s selfish, after all, and self-important, but - the thought of it just being himself and Hinata-kun --

His fingers tighten again.

It can’t be him as well. He’s one of them, too, so far as he knows - he doesn’t deserve life, let alone that sort of happiness. He ought to be grateful for this, for the thought and care and fresh bandages, for this brief time he’s been allowed to be by the side of someone who has made him feel almost like he’s worth something. Even if that person is even less than himself, he can’t deny his feelings. 

Hinata-kun lifts his head, blinks sleepily up at him.

“You’re awake,” he comments.

“Obviously,” Nagito counters. Easier to be dismissive than to let himself trust. Still, he has to ask again. “Why did you save me, Hinata-kun?”

He’s not sure what he wants to hear. He’s already asked, after all - but this time Hinata-kun’s mind is still heavy with sleep, a window clouded over, and he might not think so carefully about what he says. Nagito doesn’t doubt his previous answer as a true statement, but - it hadn’t felt like the reason.

“Hnn,” Hinata-kun says, rubbing at his eyes and sitting up straight. “Want to believe in you, I guess.”

It's not - it's nothing like he was expecting. Something hot pricks at the corners of his eyes, rises across his cheeks.

"You shouldn't," Nagito says, too quickly by far. He wants to explain it. He can't say the words out loud where he can hear them. "You - shouldn't." Firmer this time.

He can't be this close. It's true that he can't trust anyone until he can confirm them as the traitor - but all the same, if there's even a chance that Hinata-kun might not be a part of that Despair, then his presence is a potential contaminant. Even more so than usual.

His feet hit the floorboards, aiming for the door, or the bathroom, or anywhere he can get away to, but his legs shake uncontrollably, pain lancing through his thighs before they give out entirely.

Nagito has to give up - can't grab onto anything to slow his fall, can only watch the ground come up to meet him.

It doesn't. His knees don't collide with wood. There are warm arms around him, holding him up. A ribcage pressed against his own, expanding and collapsing. Like a whole universe, right there, keeping him safe.

His face is hot again. Something wet, dripping from his chin. He's turned away, so Hinata-kun can't see, but there must be something in his ragged breathing that makes him hold ever tighter, one hand coming up to pet Nagito's unbrushed mess of hair, the other massaging little circles into his shoulder.

The world is spinning a little too much for him to listen properly to whatever it is that Hinata-kun is saying.

\---

"I know that," Hajime says. Komaeda is crying, the air wheezing somewhere in his throat, somewhere in his lungs. "But I can't help it. Even when you prove that I shouldn't, over and over, it doesn't mean I don't want to, you know."

His own breathing is a little unsteady, too. He forces himself calm. Someone has to be.

If he can just focus - close his eyes - he can find the right path through this conversation to make his point to Komaeda.

"You've been right there since I woke up on this island," he begins, at the beginning, which seems sensible. "And even when the shit you do isn't what I want - what any of us want - it seems like you think it's helpful?"

He frowns, and buries his nose in Komaeda's hair while he chews on the inside of his cheek and forms the words he needs.

"I think you've fucked up a lot of times - and I know you've helped with a lot of stuff. I don't understand you, and I constantly doubt you, but I want to. Believe in you, I mean."

Komaeda's fingers wrap around Hajime's wrist. They're cold. His sobs have settled into a gentle snuffling; Hajime tugs him closer, back onto the bed. Practically onto his lap.

"Why?" he asks, hoarse and a little distant.

He doesn't know, really. Well - that's not true, is it? It's just hard to admit. His forehead comes down to rest on Komaeda's shoulder.

"You said to me -- it was - before you learned my 'talent'."

He's not being very coherent, but it'll have to do.

"You said that you're --"

Hajime's face flushes. Warm enough for Komaeda to feel, he's sure. He can't quite phrase it exactly the way Komaeda did without dying of embarrassment, it seems.

"You said that I have hope inside me," he manages, instead. "I know it was before, but I know you meant it. And that - well. Anyway, it made me feel like, no matter what my talent wound up being, no matter what awful things you did to contradict it, that you were someone I had to - even if I shouldn't, I had to - put my hope in."

Komaeda goes very still, and it's only then that Hajime realises how much the other boy was shaking in his arms until now.

"Hinata-kun," he says, and his voice is clogged, and he won't turn to make eye contact, but it has a hint of that imperious tone Hajime hasn't heard in a little while. "What I said then is that I'm in love with you."

All he can do is nod, really.

"Yeah, I know that." It's not something he could have said, himself, but he can acknowledge it, at least, if Komaeda says it so straightforwardly.

"But a lot has changed since then," he continues, and his fingers uncurl from Hajime's arm.

"Yeah, I know."

A minute passes in silence, Hajime not letting go, Komaeda not making any effort to break free. Two minutes.

"Do--" Hajime starts to say.

"I--" Komaeda begins in the same instant, and their words overlap, cutting each other off.

Komaeda's head drops, tilts just enough that Hajime can barely see the corner of one eye.

"Go on, Hinata-kun. You first."

The words die in his throat. He'd been about to say something that seems so outlandish now that the moment's impulse has passed - was about to wonder aloud if, for some reason, Komaeda _wanted_ him to be the traitor. It doesn't make sense, of course. He can't get his head around why he'd thought to ask it.

"Do you," he says instead. "Want something to eat?"

"Some water would be nice, actually," Komaeda shifts in his arms, sits properly on the side of the bed, rather than halfway on Hajime's lap, and he realises he has to let go of him. 

"Sorry," he mumbles, standing abruptly. "Yeah, I can get some stuff. Will you stay here?"

He's asking out of courtesy. Komaeda is a good actor, but the way his legs failed to hold him up isn't something that could be faked so easily, Hajime is pretty sure. He's more concerned about the original assailant coming to finish the job than about Komaeda running off somewhere. 

Still, the question earns him a withering look, which he supposes he deserves. 

There's fingers hooked into the fabric of his shirt, though, and something vulnerable in the angle of that mouth.

"I need," Komaeda says, and trails off into silence.

Hajime nearly goes to finish the sentence with what he expects to be there - that he needs him to stay by his side, so he can feel safe. There's a giddy sense that comes with that thought, an excitement he tries to crush as best he can, along with stifling the words on the tip of his tongue.

Pale hair falls in tangles over Komaeda's eyes, obscuring most of his face. The tips of his ears are pink.

"Bathroom," is the only word Hajime makes out, and he, too, flushes, just a little. Takes those thin hands in his own.

\---

Hinata-kun kindly assists Nagito.

He can feel himself slipping - somewhere between the pain and the helplessness, it just makes sense to let himself trust Hinata-kun, his saviour, his serenity, his sunlight.

A hopeless, untalented Reserve Course student who couldn't even kill him right even with it all set up perfectly.

Nagito is dizzy and nauseous and he knows it's not just the bloodloss and hunger. It's a way he hasn't felt since before they found themselves on the island. Psychosomatic, maybe, brought on by the stress. It makes him want nothing more than to curl up into a ball and let himself be taken care of by this kind, awful boy. 

Hinata-kun goes to step outside, just for a cautious look, and finds a care package for them, with a sweet-smelling note in crayon on pink paper.

Nagito would eat it regardless, even if he didn't trust Usami-sensei - but he does trust her, and Hinata-kun tastes everything before he lets Nagito anywhere near, anyway, so the only way any of it could finish him off is if he choked. And wouldn't that just be terribly embarrassing? 

He nibbles at what he can, takes it easy, but mostly he just sips at the water Hinata-kun brings him. It makes him feel cleaner, but more raw - brings his voice back down to a whisper, unless he ignores the grating ache.

Maybe if they were somewhere else - maybe if the things he'd read hadn't been true - maybe if they hadn't been brought to this island - maybe if Nagito hadn't helped set everything off - maybe if, if, if --

The sun filters through the curtains and haloes Hinata-kun with soft butter-coloured light. Reflects off his eyes, too, startling in that ~~deep, deep red~~ pale olive shade. Like shadows of leaves. He smiles, and Nagito thinks he believes in things he never has.

If things were only a little different, he might be able to kiss this saviour of his.

There's a knock on the door, and anything soft hanging in the air is gone, replaced with sharp tension.

Hinata-kun presses down on Nagito's shoulder when he tries to get up, and goes to open it.

There's no one there.

Just a little wicker basket, with a little pink blanket over it, and a note attached, in simple, childlike crayon.

Nagito is so hungry; he hasn't eaten since before tying himself down to wait for the others.

Hinata-kun insists on tasting everything before he lets Nagito anywhere near it. Like all of his priorities have shifted to a protective mindset.

"I'm sure Usami-sensei wouldn't attempt to poison me," Nagito insists, reaching for some of the plain white rice Hinata-kun is carefully excavating for fear of - who knows what. Razor blades and needles, no doubt. "And none of the others seem like quite the type to go to such --"

Hasn't he said this already?

Hinata-kun looks at him, and for a moment, his expression is terribly, awfully, beautifully empty. Like he's regarding a lesser being and can't decide whether to bother with it any more.

It makes Nagito's heart pound like nothing he's ever known. He knows he's still as can be, but the world sways and rocks around him.

But its just for a moment. An instant, and it's gone.

Hinata-kun ~~tucks his hair behind his ear~~ scratches the back of his neck and reforms the rice into a ball, passing it over.

"Can't be too careful, right?"

"I wouldn't mind, anyway," Nagito insists quietly, taking it and beginning to carefully eat around the roiling in his stomach. 

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Well," Nagito chews, swallows, realises that Hinata-kun doesn't know or understand what he 'rescued' Nagito from. 

He's interrupted before he can elaborate, though.

"If it's more of that stepping stone mentality, you can drop it right there," Hinata-kun says, and it's not, not really, not exactly, but Nagito stops anyway. 

"Hinata-kun," he says, instead. "Hinata-kun, I--" _Hope you're the traitor,_ he thinks, but the words don't come out. Can't. "I hope my presence isn't too much of a burden on you." He says instead, which is true, he supposes. Even on Hinata-kun, who by all rights is the one who should be a burden.

"You're not asking me to feed you, so it's an improvement, really."

The very thought brings warmth to his cheeks, lips parting in an involuntary smile.

"That was only days ago," Nagito murmurs, and Hinata-kun can't meet his eyes now, either. "See how things have changed."

"Yeah," Hinata-kun says, and stands, and turns away from Nagito. " ~~You and Nanami~~ Our friends are ~~both~~ almost all dead."

Nagito's ears aren't working quite right. It wouldn't be the first time.

He flops backwards, rolls over, curls up - supine, lateral, foetal. 

"I think it's best if I sleep, Hinata-kun," he confesses. And, since he's being so open, so honest; "I don't think I can deal with hallucinations on top of all this."

He closes his eyes. Hinata-kun's voice asks him a lot of things. Accuses him of a lot of things.

Nagito dreams of a gun jamming, luckily.

\---

All of the nameplates on the cabins are - wrong, to look at. 

Hajime can't trust anyone, even Nanami. But shouldn't he at least be able to find her? To know where she is? 

When he gets back, he thinks he sees Komaeda laid out as he was found - eyes glassy and open, skin cold to touch. That spear through him, rather than held precariously above.

He is cold. But when Hajime touches him, he wakes up with a start. His injured hand clutches at his middle for a moment, before his eyes clear.

"Hinata...kun?" He asks, like he's unsure.

"Just me, sorry."

"I thought - you were someone else," Komaeda's eyes are fixed on him, and he can't return such a gaze. "But it's just you."

He almost sounds disappointed. Well, that wouldn't be too much of a surprise.

"Just me," Hajime reassures again. "Actually, I can't find the others at all. It's like they've disappeared."

Komaeda's face scrunches up.

There's something - maybe the tilt of his lips, maybe the crease at the bridge of his nose when he frowns like this, maybe the deep, worn-down shadows under his eyes - about the expression that makes Hajime feel impulsive.

He only reaches out and brushes some of that pale-sick hair out of the way, only barely makes contact between fingertip and face.

It's different, though. Somehow. Something about it.

Closer to how it was at the start, but different to that, too.

Komaeda understands him by now, he thinks, for sure - he's not so sure he understands the other boy, but he knows him, at least. And he trusts him.

He - t r ̱̎ us͐ ̕ ̜͆t̡̤͊̐ ̯͞s̈́ him?

The least predictable, most-likely-to-incite-violence, nearly-blew-everyone-up Komaeda Nagito, he trusts him.

Actually, if Hajime thinks about it, he's fairly predictable. Easy enough.

He's been stood with his hand so close to Komaeda's face for a good minute now. The heat rising in that face is easy enough to feel even without touching.

He does, though. Touch, that is.

The way Komaeda is looking at him means he wants Hajime to kiss him, and since there's nothing better to do right now --

(Komaeda kisses, as expected, with a lot of gasping and more drool than necessary, but a great deal of joy.)

(it's almost familiar.)

\---

Days or hours or weeks pass.

They go for walks on the beach, holding hands and speaking softly.

They huddle in bed when their classmates (despair-ridden, surely, by now the fear is too great to deny), wrap and re-wrap bandages around legs that still can't quite hold Nagito up.

They cook together, warm, each laughing when the other messes up.

The basket from Usami-sensei is the same every day. The note from Usami-sensei is the same every day.

They sit in silence while Nagito trembles violently and comes apart at the ~~wrist~~ seams, and Hinata-kun only moves to breathe, staring into space as if everything he can see is the same. It makes Nagito want to - want to --

They talk about the things they know, the things they could or should do, to get away from here, and whether they should. They tell each other everything.

Hinata-kun dotes on Nagito. Nagito praises and uplifts Hinata-kun. They take care of each other. They won't let anything happen to each other.

Sometimes he thinks he can hear Nanami-san. She's apologising from somewhere he can't reach.

Maybe that's what Hinata-kun listens to, when he looks so uninterested.

Nagito doesn't understand what she means.

He's living happily ever after, after all.

\---

The music is loud enough to be near deafening, inside the building. There's smoke, too much of it, and fire, too -

They throw the bottles, one after another, fruitlessly, and can only wait for the sprinkler system to kick in.

Waiting outside for the building to ventilate, Hajime can't calm down. His heart is pounding in his chest. Like his body is preparing him to see something bad. Like he's been stabbed through the chest.

When he does see it, it feels like time itself stops.

\---

The light he cracks his eyes open to is unfamiliar. Pale and greenish, washing that face beyond the glass above him in an unflattering pallor.

Hinata-kun - no, Kamukura-kun? - no. Hinata-kun is handsome no matter what, though. 

He's smiling at Nagito. Patient; it really does give him a sense of utmost serenity.

How lucky for him.

**Author's Note:**

> i wanted to give it a bad ending, but.. it felt melodramatic and somehow cheesier than the Actual happy ending while i was writing it?? anyway


End file.
